I woke up this morning to the sound of my mom shoving the New York Times in my face. This is a frequent occurrence. Today's must see article: the crowd-funded full page ad Occupy Gezi placed. I've been reading the various evolutions of the ad all week, so I told her it could wait until I at least had my glasses on. With fifteen minutes until I was supposed to be on the clock for my new job (which is remote - I get to wear pajamas), I didn't get to it. (And still haven't.) An hour or so later, I heard a cackle from the dining room (where my mom does all of her newspaper perusals). "Anya! I've got a new Kumaré for you! You have to read this!"
For those of you whom I haven't yet badgered, Kumaré is the name of a documentary and its "protagonist": an Indian-American guy who decides to carry out a particularly weird social experiment, and becomes a fake guru with real followers. I've been passionately interested / obsessed with this film since I saw the trailer for it about a year ago. I thought, from the trailer, that it would be a de-bunking of all the hippie New Age bullshit I've been surrounded with my entire life, thanks to my parents. And it is. Kind of. I don't want to give away anything, because I genuinely hope anyone reading my blog will be open-minded enough to see it for themselves. I know it will sound weird, but this movie changed my life. So much so that I wrote Vikram Gandhi (Kumaré's real name) a letter (not an email - an actual letter on stationery) telling him so. It's really worth at least one view.
Anyway. Kumaré has obviously stuck with me, and not only because I think Vikram Gandhi is super hot and I would happily bear his children. His guru alter ego teaches one lesson: you don't need a guru. You are your own guru. The article my mom laughed about, cut out, and then highlighted before foisting it upon me, is about a "real" Indian guru who's actually getting shit done in India, though may have dubious financial practices. The article is worth a read. I'm bringing all of this up for two reasons:
1) I have yet to write about my trip with Laura to Thailand and India AND
2) I just discovered that my first and only guru, (if I could call him that, and I normally wouldn't,) Stephen, died a few years ago. And I'm not really sure how else to deal with the news other than cry a bunch.
My brother told me before Laura and I left a few months ago that he knew he would be talking to a "different version of Anya" when we returned from our Asian adventure. The cliché is that Westerners go to India and it changes them. They have a social and spiritual awakening of some kind, and they spend the rest of their lives basking in good vibes and gratitude. People certainly expected that of me when I came home, at least. A newer, happier, ethereal yet more down-to-earth me? Maybe there would even be a physical change with this new enlightenment? A subtle glow?
Sorry to disappoint, guys. That glow you're seeing is a combination of moisturizer and sweat - not balanced chakras. I don't think.
I haven't written about Asia before because I've been trying to digest it, understand it, and assess my feelings about it all. The thing is - I did go through a "change." But it actually happened two days before I left for Thailand. It happened in the middle of my Wednesday evening yoga class, when I found myself tearing up where I'd normally have to suppress my inner Daria. My instructor, Farzy, always begins each class by saying "Let's express our gratitude for the prana inside." (Prana is the Sanskrit term for life force/energy/Chi.) Up until that day, I'd asked myself if I felt gratitude. And up until that day, I hadn't. But there was a shift in me. I was counting down the hours until my flight took off, when I would begin a journey I knew would be strange, great, and overwhelming. After class, I reminded Farzy of my departure and thanked her for guiding me back to my own life. And I meant it. I remember hugging my friend Oren (also a yoga instructor) and telling him I'd see him the next day for his class. And inexplicably, I burst into tears while I walked to my car. I sobbed - with happiness. Thirty minutes passed while I cried and cried in my car and reflected on how if you had asked me a year before where I'd be, the last thing I would've said would've been an elephant sanctuary in Northern Thailand - or anywhere in India. I was such a fucking mess for a long, long time. I felt powerless, frustrated, and small. I felt like my life's choices had been taken away from me. I felt like shit.
But there I was. Walking out of a yoga class - not having fallen down once - surrounded by positive, good, honest people. And I was about to do something that meant something to me. When nothing had meant anything in many, many months. I somehow made it home that night, and my mom saw me (from over her papers at the dining room table), and without me saying a word, she said "You've changed. Something has changed. Your aura has changed." Normally I'd call "bullshit," but I'm not sure I can.
I will get to actual commentary on Thailand and India in later posts, but before I do, I need to explain that the only reason I can't call "bullshit" about my mother's Aura Talk is because I recognize that I do not know or understand most things about my own body and the boundaries of this life. Writing that is as dismaying for me as it might be smirk-worthy for you. Like I mentioned above, I have a hard time with New Age hippie bullshit. But I can entertain these ideas only because I have to.
In its infinite wisdom, Reed College requires six quarters of physical education in order to graduate. (The administration's logic behind this is that students must take a break from their books for mental health, and exercise is a good way to force them out of the library.) It was because of that requirement that I found myself in my first (and to date, best) yoga class with Kundalini yogi Stephen. I had zero idea of what I was doing, no knowledge of yoga beyond rumors and what I'd read in a few Indian texts. I couldn't have been more of a novice, or a skeptic. My memories of Stephen's classes are actually pretty hazy. Since it was Kundalini, we did a lot of breathing, and since he knew we were tired students, we did a lot of eye strengthening exercises. I remember shoulder stand, head stand, bow pose, uttanasana, and a lot of talks about astrology, which struck me as particularly out of place. Stephen showed up to class one autumn afternoon on the tennis courts wearing crotchless pants. (Yes. You read that correctly.) I definitely remember that. We would do these very long corpse poses and sometimes he would ring a bell to bring us out of it. He was eclectic, and had a pony tail and glasses, and always seemed especially kind and totally un-creepy. He talked in depth about anatomy, oxygen, and magnetic fields.
Though I'm sure I wasn't particularly "good" at yoga at the time, I do remember how I felt after his classes - like the world had been sharpened. Colors were brighter, edges were bolder, tastes were stronger. My RA bumped into me one day when I was walking from the gym back to my dorm, and he told me I looked and was acting totally high. (And he would've known.) To this day I can neither explain nor deny the experience I had twice in his classes: in the deepest of corpse poses, completely disconnected from my body, I began to leave it. My entire body was 100% asleep, and my mind was the quietest it has ever been. And yet there was something else - something I had never felt before - a third component. And it was rising from my chest. I could feel it lifting and I panicked. I "woke myself up," for lack of better wording, shaking. When class ended, I very timidly approached Stephen and asked him if such a thing were even possible. (I couldn't admit that it had just happened. Always the skeptic, Anya.) He smiled at me, hugged me, and told me not to worry. I wouldn't - and couldn't - get lost. No questions. No raised eyebrows. I can't express what that meant to me.
I have since learned that according to the yoga community, I am not as crazy as I feel, and that this leaving the body is definitely a "thing" that happens, especially in Kundalini. The first time I met Oren, I confessed the experience, and his eyes widened and he told me its name in Sanskrit, which was too long and hard to pronounce for me to remember.
Stephen opened my eyes and my heart to the possibility of more - to the uncomfortable grey sphere I inhabit: equal parts skepticism, and reticent but very real belief that this physical existence is only part of something much bigger. He is responsible for my continued interest in yoga, but also for a great deal of my interest in India. The idea that he is no longer prancing around Portland in crotchless pants, a beard, and a pony tail, is surreal. I'm sure he'd say that death were merely the next step in a cycle, but that gives me less than no comfort.
Stephen, I thank you. You gave me so much, and we were but acquaintances. I know someone would have taken some of your ashes here, and that part of you is still floating amongst the laundry and cows. I am truly grateful we at least met one last time:
Namaste.
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